‘Clear Bias’ Against Hiring Veterans Under Obama Administration, Says Former VA Official

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Veterans must be given preference in securing federal jobs, according to long-standing laws, but hiring hasn’t always worked out in their favor. A federal audit found that on numerous occasions, agencies placed Obama administration political appointees into career government jobs with civil service protections—bypassing veterans.

Much of the federal bureaucracy has turned against men and women who served the country in the military, said Darin Selnick, a retired Air Force captain and former official at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“There is a clear bias against veterans. They think veterans should start at the bottom like everyone else,” Selnick told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“The government culture wants everyone to start from the bottom in government. But it’s not as if veterans never worked for the government. They worked for the Department of Defense.”

Selnick, the senior veterans affairs adviser for the advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America, was also the special assistant to the secretary of Veterans Affairs and the director for the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives during the George W. Bush administration, said the preference is most helpful for lower-level jobs.

“The country realizes it has a debt,” Selnick said. “Without the military, we would be in terrible shape. They put their lives on the line and are willing to die.”

Under federal law, veterans who are disabled or served active duty get preference over other applicants on the condition they are qualified for the job. If a veteran scores 70 percent or higher on the civil service exam, the applicant will have an extra five to 10 points added to their rankings for the job.

Some form of veterans’ preference for federal jobs has been in place since the Civil War, according to the Office of Personnel Management. This policy was established to help disabled veterans especially. Congress updated the law with the Veterans’ Preference Act of 1944 in the midst of World War II.

President Franklin Roosevelt, in supporting the law, stated:

I believe that the federal government, functioning in its capacity as an employer, should take the lead in assuring those who are in the armed forces that, when they return, special consideration will be given to them in their efforts to get employment.

The post-Civil War law specified disabled veterans, recognizing that economic damage that could result from injuries in service to the country. After World War I, executive orders expanded preference to all honorably discharged war veterans.

The World War II-era law largely codified existing executive orders.

The Office of Personnel Management website states:

Recognizing their sacrifice, Congress enacted laws to prevent veterans seeking federal employment from being penalized for their time in military service. Veterans’ preference recognizes the economic loss suffered by citizens who have served their country in uniform, restores veterans to a favorable competitive position for government employment, and acknowledges the larger obligation owed to disabled veterans.

The Government Accountability Office reported last month that federal agencies didn’t follow procedures to avoid favoritism in hiring a quarter of President Barack Obama’s political appointees that transitioned into career positions. The report sampled the actions of 30 federal agencies in such “conversions” from Jan. 1, 2010, to Oct. 1, 2015.

In cases with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Health and Human Services, this meant bypassing past qualified veterans despite that statutory preference.

Unlike political appointees, federal workers in the civil service system are hired through a merit system, are difficult to fire, and carry over in changes of administrations, Republican or Democrat.

In 1883, Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act to replace a “spoils system” with a merit system of hiring. Under the merit system, employees would be specifically hired based on scores and tests rather than the preference of the political party in power. The new system also made it more difficult for a new administration to fire workers.

Agencies and employees face consequences when procedures are not followed, said Office of Personnel Management spokesman Sandy Day.

“In such cases, [Office of Personnel Management] conducts a post-appointment review,” Day told The Daily Signal. “When we cannot conclude the hiring action was free from political influence, we require the agency to take corrective action and hold the agency accountable for carrying it out.”

If there was a violation, Day said, “The individual would either have to be placed back in his or her political position or, if that was not possible, have his or her employment terminated.”

Veterans’ preference has been scrutinized, even under Senate Armed Service Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., as the Senate voted to make changes in its version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Congress has since removed the changes from the bill.

Defense Department officials reportedly pressed for the change in June, concerned that some of the senior positions weren’t going to the most experienced applicants.

The change would have limited veterans’ preference to “single use,” which means, it could only be used to get one job. So, veterans already working in government civilian jobs who are applying for higher positions, would not have preference.

However, McCain scrapped the idea in October, after veteran groups objected. In a letter to the American Legion, McCain said, “Given your and others’ concerns, I will ensure that this provision, which is not included in the House bill, is not included in the NDAA conference report.”

“We appreciate Sen. McCain’s stalwart defense of an important benefit for all veterans who’ve served and sacrificed for their country,” American Legion National Commander Charles E. Schmidt said in a statement. “We look forward to working with the chairman to ensure the final NDAA properly protects this earned benefit.” (For more from the author of “‘Clear Bias’ Against Hiring Veterans Under Obama Administration, Says Former VA Official” please click HERE)

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Murkowski Campaign Makes ‘Highly Unusual’ Massive Transfers of Funds To State Party

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Anchorage, Alaska. October 24, 2016 — An FEC Report filed by the Alaska Republican Party for financial activity in September has disclosed a series of highly unusual financial transactions involving both the Lisa Murkowski for U.S. Senate Campaign and the Alaska Republican Party.

Starting on September 20, the Murkowski campaign began making large transfers of campaign funds from her campaign account to the Alaska Republican Party which were described on an FEC report as “Contribution of Surplus Campaign Funds.”

The Murkowski campaign made the following payments, totaling $150,300, to the Alaska Republican Party: September 20 – $50,000; September 23 – $67,800; September 30 – $25,500. And, an FEC Report filed by the Murkowski campaign also showed a fourth transfer to the Alaska Republican Party on September 30 in the amount of $7,000.

It should be noted all these payments were made after Joe Miller entered the U.S. Senate race on Sept. 6.

“The whole purpose of campaign finance law is so the voters can know the true source of the message and who is funding it,” said campaign spokesman Randy DeSoto. “There appears to be strong evidence in these instances the Murkowski campaign and the Alaska Republican Party are trying to circumvent the law.”

In a phone call today, FEC compliance staff described such pre-election transfers of “Surplus Campaign Funds” by federal candidates to a party committee as “highly unusual” and the sort of matter that, at the very least, “may require an Advisory Opinion” from the Commission.

The Murkowski Campaign ambiguously categorized each of these four large transfers simply as “other.” If the funds were transferred for some legitimate purpose, this is where the purpose should have been disclosed.

Moreover, under federal law, the amount of money that the Alaska Republican party committee may expend on Coordinated Party Activities with this year’s Senate campaign is strictly limited to $96,100. This means that if all these transferred funds are used to pay for coordinated media or mailings boosting Murkowski’s campaign or opposing Miller’s, there would not just be one violation of federal election law, but two.

The Alaska Republican Party would be violating federal election law for making an illegal, excessive Coordinated Party Expenditure of more than $50,000. And Murkowski would be violating federal election law for receiving an illegal, excessive in-kind contribution in the same amount. Such illegal excessive contributions would no doubt result in hefty five-digit fines being imposed not just on the Murkowski campaign, but on the Alaska Republican Party as well. If all of the Murkowski funds are spent on helping Murkowski, this fine would need to be paid from the scarce resources of the Alaska Republican Party.

On the other hand, if the funds transferred to the Alaska Republican Party were not being used for the benefit of the Murkowski campaign, these enormous transfers of cash would constitute a betrayal of those who donated to the Murkowski campaign in order to help elect her to office — not for some other purpose.

Moreover, for Murkowski, as a candidate in a close race, to make such massive transfers of money that would not benefit her campaign, would be the height of arrogance — demonstrating that she believed that she had already won the election, just as the first votes are being cast throughout the State today.

“Sadly, the political establishment of Alaska has for too long taken for granted the people of Alaska. It is time to end the tenure of this arrogant, high-flying, loose-dealing professional politician and return the U.S. Senate seat to the people of Alaska,” said DeSoto.

Joe Miller is a limited government Constitutionalist who believes government exists to protect our liberties, not to take them away. He supports free people, free markets, federalism, the Constitutional right to life, the 2nd Amendment, religious liberty, American sovereignty, and a strong national defense.

These Gun-Grabbing Liberals Are So Ignorant It Hurts!

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Conservative funnyman and expert liberal ignorance-exposer Steven Crowder took to the streets in a new video to find out what “common sense” gun control actually means.

Apparently, it involves less “common sense” and more “common I-have-no-clue-what-I’m-talking-about.”

Check it out:

Yikes. “Ignorance, thy name is Leftism,” indeed.

For more from Steven Crowder, visit Louder With Crowder. (For more from the author of “These Gun-Grabbing Liberals Are So Ignorant It Hurts!” please click HERE)

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Lies, Lies, and More Lies: “New” Alaska Republican Party, Same as the Old

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The new boss? Same as the old. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Alaska Republican Party Chair Tuckerman Babcock today filed an FEC complaint against Joe Miller’s campaign filled with fabrications and lies.

Either Tuckerman Babcock is incompetent, or dishonest. There isn’t much middle ground.

It should be readily apparent that an LLC (Restoring Liberty) solely owned by the principal (Joe) can make unlimited contributions. The only quibble can be over the value. Yet Mr. Babcock complains both that the campaign didn’t disclose enough, and that it disclosed too much.

Below are the complaints filed with the Federal Election Commission:

1. Made illegal corporate contributions to the Miller campaign – This is categorically false. Joe solely owns and controls Restoring Liberty, LLC. It is completely legal for Joe Miller to donate his own money and resources. See Federal Election Campaign Guide, page 29.

2. Illegally accepted extremely valuable in-kind campaign contributions from corporate sponsors – This also is patently false. See above.

3. Illegally accepted unlawful or excess contributions in the form of free rent for the headquarters – This is also false, checks went out before the complaint was filed. There was a clerical error in the report. Will be included in forthcoming amended filing.

4. Accepted email and other lists from corporate entities without paying fair value – This is also completely untrue, and without warrant. See No. 1.

5. Transferred use of “corporate” social media accounts without paying fair value – False claim. Restoring Liberty has a separate Facebook account. Even if Joe were using Restoring Liberty accounts, it would still be untrue. See No. 1.

6. Placed a direct link to his US Senate campaign on a for-profit corporate website without paying fair value – False claim. Already disclosed as in-kind donation. See No. 1.

7. Made numerous solicitations for campaign donations without a proper disclaimer – This claim is partially true. We are aware of one email that was sent at the beginning of the campaign without a proper disclaimer. When it was discovered, the error was immediately corrected in further communications. It is being investigated to determine if there was indeed more than one.

8. Utilized yard signs and other materials with inaccurate disclaimers – Volunteers have utilized old campaign material. However, to suggest this represents an FEC violation is absurd.

9. Solicited donations via radio communications without a proper disclaimer – It is unknown what is being claimed here. Appears to be a complete fabrication.

10. Failure to properly disclose receipts and expenditures – There were some incidental omissions that will appear in the amended form.

11. Fabricated certain in-kind contributions – False statement. Citizens for Joe Miller received tens of thousands of old mailers paid for by the Alaska Republican Party that were reported as an in-kind contribution.

Lisa Murkowski and Tuckerman Babcock are clearly desperate to change the subject. Murkowski’s campaign is sinking in the polls, and Babcock has his own house to clean. These kinds of frivolous complaints are a clear sign that the senator is losing.

Here’s hoping Mr. Babcock will come clean and shed some light on the troubling $150,000+ Murkowski-ARP money laundering scheme.

Alaska: A Case Study in Medicaid Expansion

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My home state of Alaska is the latest state to discover the painful side effects of expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare. It’s been roughly a year since Gov. Bill Walker unilaterally made this move via executive order, but the program already costs tens of millions of dollars more than projected for 2016. With the state beginning to shoulder part of the bill for the expansion next year, the program’s higher-than-expected costs now threaten to destabilize a state budget that’s already in disarray.

This is a typical result of Medicaid expansion, and one Gov. Walker should have expected. Although the federal government promises “free money” to cover the cost of the program, there’s no such thing.

Medicaid expansion enables thousands of able-bodied, childless, working-age adults to receive taxpayer-funded health insurance. In Alaska’s case, only about 45% of those eligible under the expansion are currently working. This includes people who may already have private insurance coverage but choose to enroll in the government program instead.

This program is costly. Medicaid’s actuaries released a report earlier this summer that revealed spending per new Medicaid enrollee was 49% higher than expected.

The result is a higher bill for taxpayers. Alaska’s Medicaid expansion was initially expected to cost $145 million this year. Even though the number of enrollees roughly matched expectations, the cost of providing them insurance did not. That clocks in at $175 million, a $30 million difference that’s also higher than the Medicaid expansion’s expected cost for all of 2017, too. (Read more from “Alaska: A Case Study in Medicaid Expansion” HERE)

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Sadie Robertson Shares Her Thoughts on Trump in Light of Recent Scandals

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Despite the release of a sexually explicit audio recording and several subsequent sexual assault allegations, one of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s youngest female supporters recently revealed she still supports the embattled billionaire.

Reality television personality Sadie Robertson shared her take on the contentious election cycle when a reporter for The Huntsville (Ala.) Times asked if she continued to stand by the endorsement she made in August.

“That’s a good question,” the Duck Dynasty star said. “I would say yes, I would be voting for Trump.”

Robertson went on to explain that her support for the real-estate developer does not mean she supports his behavior.

“It doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he says or that he’s a moral person,” she said, “but in the end it comes down to two people.”

The 19-year-old, who was the runner-up in Season 19 of Dancing with the Stars, is not the only member of her famous family to publicly back Trump.

Her father, Willie Robertson, supported Trump during the primary. Family patriarch Phil Robertson endorsed the former reality television host after his first choice, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, suspended his campaign.

“For me and my family,” Sadie Robertson said, “we agree with what Trump wants to do with America.”

She went on to describe the unique opportunity she has as a celebrity to influence others as a responsibility she does not take lightly.

“It’s a huge honor, honestly,” she said, adding she is thankful her position allows her to share her Christian faith with a wide audience.

“When people have told me I’m a role model,” Robertson explained, “it makes me excited, because I’m going to share the good news.”

While Trump’s current controversies cost him some support among women, Robertson is hardly the only prominent female to continue openly endorsing the GOP nominee.

Patricia Smith, whose son was among the four Americans killed in the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, is one such supporter. She is expected to be one of Trump’s guests in the audience for the final presidential debate on Wednesday. (For more from the author of “Sadie Robertson Shares Her Thoughts on Trump in Light of Recent Scandals” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Clinton Accuser Rips CNN as Network Trumpets Another New Poll

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As CNN on Monday breathlessly announced yet another poll from media sources bearing good news for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, there was one very loud, dissenting voice.

Kathleen Willey, who accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct while she was a White House aide, started an avalanche of attacks against CNN by delivering a succinct denunciation of the network.

The flareup started innocuously, with CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeting out a preview of coming attractions.

A little while later, Willey pounced.

Tapper’s reaction seemed puzzled.

Willey had one more shot.

Her tweet referred to Charles Ortel, a writer and financial expert who has been critical of the Clinton Foundation.

Willey, who first told her story of being sexually assaulted in 1998 as part of the investigation into Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, has returned to the national stage this year in support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

She found support for her position on Twitter.

Trump has also questioned the accuracy of polls, roundly attacking them as an example of media bias.

“What they do is they show these phony polls where they look at Democrats, and it’s heavily weighted with Democrats. And then they’ll put on a poll where we’re not winning, and everybody says, ‘Oh, they’re not winning,’” Trump said Monday in Boynton Beach, Fla. “The truth is, I think we’re winning.”

Trump has indicated he sees media bias and dubious polling as an extension of a larger issue in the campaign.

“There is nothing the political establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense. The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself,” he said earlier this month.

“The most powerful weapon deployed by the Clintons is the corporate media,” Trump added. “Let’s be clear on one thing: The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They are a political special interest, no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with an agenda. And their agenda is to elect the Clintons at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy. For them, it is a war — and for them, nothing is out of bounds.” (For more from the author of “Clinton Accuser Rips CNN as Network Trumpets Another New Poll” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

WSJ: Top Clinton-Allied Group Gave $468,000 for Senior FBI Official’s Wife’s Campaign

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The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that groups affiliated with top Hillary Clinton ally Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe contributed nearly $700,000 to help a State Senate candidate whose husband oversaw the FBI’s investigation of Clinton’s e-mails.

According to WSJ:

The political organization of Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, an influential Democrat with longstanding ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, gave nearly $500,000 to the election campaign of the wife of an official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who later helped oversee the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email use.

Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.

The Virginia Democratic Party, over which Mr. McAuliffe exerts considerable control, donated an additional $207,788 worth of support to Dr. McCabe’s campaign in the form of mailers, according to the records. That adds up to slightly more than $675,000 to her candidacy from entities either directly under Mr. McAuliffe’s control or strongly influenced by him. The figure represents more than a third of all the campaign funds Dr. McCabe raised in the effort.

McAuliffe was one of the people who convinced Dr. McCabe to run for office, according to the Journal. An office spokesperson told the newspaper that McAuliffe “supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a customary practice for Virginia governors. … Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would help pass his agenda is ridiculous.”

The FBI likewise said there was nothing untoward about McAuliffe’s support for Dr. McCabe, who was the third-largest recipient of Common Good PAC in 2015.

The FBI said in a statement that during his wife’s campaign Mr. McCabe “played no role, attended no events, and did not participate in fundraising or support of any kind. Months after the completion of her campaign, then-Associate Deputy Director McCabe was promoted to Deputy, where, in that position, he assumed for the first time, an oversight role in the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails.”

FBI officials said that after that meeting with the governor in Richmond on March 7, Mr. McCabe sought ethics advice from the bureau and followed it, avoiding involvement with public corruption cases in Virginia, and avoiding any campaign activity or events.

Mr. McCabe’s supervision of the Clinton email case in 2016 wasn’t seen as a conflict or an ethics issue because his wife’s campaign was over by then and Mr. McAuliffe wasn’t part of the email probe, officials said.

However, Mr. McCabe was involved both directly and indirectly in the Clinton investigation from the time it was launched 15 months ago. He initially oversaw the FBI’s D.C. field office, “which provided personnel and resources to the Clinton email probe.” In February 2016, Mr. McCabe was promoted to the FBI’s second-highest post, where he was a senior member of the group overseeing the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail practices.

This is not the first accusation of improper action by McAuliffe. He is under investigation for possibly illegal donations by the same office formerly headed by Mr. McCabe. (For more from the author of “WSJ: Top Clinton-Allied Group Gave $468,000 for Senior FBI Official’s Wife’s Campaign” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

A Week in the Life and Lies of Hillary Clinton

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Here’s what we know: The news involving Hillary Clinton was flying hard and fast last week. And the mainstream news media is so in-the-tank for Clinton it’s growing barnacles.

So let’s see if we can run down some of last week’s adventures and revelations that the mainstream media won’t put together for you, and find a common denominator among them all.

Clinton’s Campaign Pays to Cause Violence at Trump Rallies

One of the main themes of the general election has been the notion that Trump’s rallies are violence-filled exercises in extremism. What we learned from the first Project Veritas undercover videos is that the violence was instigated by paid operatives of Hillary Clinton. Her people boasted about it. They are also seen on the tape saying knowledge of their dirty works went all the way up to Hillary. This should be no surprise. The tactics used were straight out of Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals, and Hillary Clinton is nothing if not a disciple of Alinksy. But what we lack in surprise we should make up with horror.

Think about it: A major candidate for president of the United States is deliberately instigating violence in the American streets. In Chicago, that instigation led to riots that injured two Chicago policemen, among others. Blue Lives Matter? Black Lives Matter? For Hillary, apparently only the White House matters.

During Wednesday night’s debate, Hillary neither denied nor defended herself against the charge. Instead, she again accused Donald Trump of inspiring violence. Accusing your enemy of what you yourself are doing is just another of Alinky’s Rules.

Exposing National Security Secrets

During the debate, Hillary Clinton managed to share with our enemies America’s response time to a nuclear attack! Military experts immediately worried that she had just spilled an extremely sensitive national security secret. Remember the saying “Loose Lips Sink Ships”? Loose Lips should at least sink a candidacy, especially if it’s a candidate who, according to FBI Director James Comey, was “extremely careless” when handling national secrets. She didn’t need a computer server this time. Just a few seconds of air time.

Speaking of Hillary’s mishandling of classified information, a video emerged of Hillary lecturing State Department staffers in 2010 of the dangers of such carelessness. Either Clinton believes rules don’t apply to her or she is unaware of what she is reading into a camera. Neither bodes well for a potential commander-in-chief.

The “Quid Pro Quo” to Protect Hillary

While we’re on the subject of the FBI and classified emails, notes from the FBI’s criminal investigation of Clinton revealed an appalling effort by Undersecretary of State, and former Clinton underling, Patrick Kennedy to pressure the FBI to change the classification of one of the most highly classified emails found on Hillary’s server.

The FBI had been begging Kennedy for months to allow more FBI agents overseas. Kennedy ignored the requests. Suddenly, Kennedy calls up out of the blue with what the FBI notes specifically call a “quid pro quo” offer. Basically, Kennedy said he’d give them those agents they wanted, if they did him this little-itty-bitty favor: Downgrade the classification on one of two emails found on Hillary’s private server that the FBI had flagged. Downgrading the email would not only keep it from the public, it would give Hillary more cover for her lie that there was no classified email on her server. Not coincidentally, the email had to do with Benghazi.

The State Department and the FBI deny there was any “quid pro quo” because there never was a deal. There never was a deal because when the FBI agent saw that the email involved Benghazi, he told Kennedy to take a flying leap.

“Mr. Fix It” Meets the Possibility of Blackmail

With the mainstream media’s joy at digging up all the abundant dirt on Donald Trump, you’d think a cover story from the people who exposed John Edward’s affair in 2008 would generate at least some attention. Apparently not, if the target is Hillary Rodham Clinton. On Wednesday, the National Enquirer released a detailed story from a self-described Hollywood “Mr. Fix It,” who says that from 1994 to 2008, he covered up a dozen or so lurid incidents involving both Bill and Hillary Clinton, including Bill’s romps with a hooker caught on tape and Hillary’s dalliances with both men and women.

You can read all about it in the grocery line.

“Oh, but that’s just sex. That’s just her personal life,” we’ll hear. (As if somehow her personal life is less relevant than Trump’s.)

Wrong. Far more important is the implication of the story. For six of the years Mr. Fix It says he cleaned up the Clintons’ messes, they were the President and First Lady of the United States. Meaning, if even one of those stories is true, Hillary Clinton behaved in a manner that could have exposed the U.S. government to blackmail.

As did her careless use of a private server.

This gets us to the common denominator linking all these above stories together.

Hillary’s Self-Interest Over the Security of the Nation

The one theme running through just this one week of stories is that time and time again, Hillary Clinton puts her needs and desires over the security and safety of the United States. Her ambition comes before America, her power over “We the People.”

These recent revelations alone spell out how completely Hillary Clinton has betrayed the public trust. However, The Stream ‘s Nancy Flory lays out how this pattern of betraying the public trust goes back to the early 1970s, when she was fired from the Watergate Committee.

We’re Not Done Yet …

Among last week’s other Clinton moments:

1. WikiLeaks revealed that the Clinton Foundation pays women drastically less than it pays men, despite the fact that she has used such disparity statistics for years to paint corporate America as sexist.

2. Pay-to-Play: WikiLeaks also revealed Hillary Clinton agreed to attend a meeting in Morocco if Morocco kicked in $12 million to the Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. In the email, her aide and BFF Huma Abedin grumbled, “She created this mess and she knows it.” Huma could have said the same about the Clinton campaign bus that illegally dumped fecal matter into a city sewer.

3. Project Veritas also released a second video showing Clinton operatives scheming on ways to commit massive voter fraud. When Donald Trump said in the debate that given such evidence as the video he would have to wait and see before accepting the election results, Clinton expressed shock and horror. Yes, a woman who served in the administration of a man birthed in the Chicago machine, expressing horror over the possibility of voter fraud.

Finally, the notes released by the FBI show that Hillary Clinton was so rude and “contemptuous” of her State Department security detail that senior agents refused to work with her. (They also resented being put in significant danger just for a photo op during a trip to Jakarta.)

If Hillary Clinton has that much contempt for people willing to take a bullet for her, how much more contempt does she have for voters she’s never met? (For more from the author of “A Week in the Life and Lies of Hillary Clinton” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Myth of Donald Trump as an ‘Anti-Intellectual’

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One of the criticisms frequently hurled at Donald Trump is that he’s an “anti-intellectual.” Liberals count on incautious readers to conflate the term “intellectual” (which refers to a range of professions, which leftists mostly dominate, and not because they have the better arguments) with “intelligent person.” But while there is some overlap, those terms mean quite different things. I care a good deal about this distinction, having edited the website Intellectual Conservative since 2002.

Trump shares very similar views to the other Republican candidates for president against whom he ran, on some 80 percent of issues (abortion, taxes, Obamacare, a strong defense). But he stood out from most of them on a few hot-button issues that are key to the self-conception of contemporary academics and journalists — principally, trade and immigration. On those subjects, he took a stance in support of what he and millions of others see as America’s national interest; that stance was one that’s anathema to most self-conceived “intellectuals” in 2016.

Those candidates who didn’t challenge today’s (quite recent) consensus on those two issues got much milder treatment from the media. For instance, The New York Times described Jeb Bush as “an intellectual in search of new ideas, a serial consulter of outsiders who relishes animated debate and a probing manager who eagerly burrows into the bureaucratic details.”

Now, that description wouldn’t fit Donald Trump. But Trump graduated with high grades from schools as demanding as those Jeb Bush attended. He is a very bright guy who is sloppy sometimes when speaking because he’s not a polished lifelong politician and he enjoys entertaining. It’s part of his charisma. Reasonable people can disagree over Trump’s boorish, flamboyant style. But to claim that he is an anti-intellectual is to grant the left’s self-serving definition of what intellectual life entails. It is clear that Trump has a strong grasp of the issues, although as a relatively newcomer to politics, it could take him several years to acquire the memory to spout details off the top of his head. But any policy wonk invited on a Sunday morning talk show can manage that. Is that what we want in a president?

That Trump may have plenty of supporters with middling IQs is meaningless. Democrats traditionally have higher numbers among less-skilled and less-educated voters and they are never accused of being anti-intellectual. A Pew survey from 2012 found, “On eight of 13 questions about politics, Republicans outscored Democrats by an average of 18 percentage points.” High school dropouts have traditionally favored Democrats, and this has expanded in recent years to include those with only a high school education or some college. Notably, the majority of regular contributors to my Intellectual Conservative website support Trump, as do the signers of the Scholars for Trump manifesto.

The Left’s Self-Certifying Coup in the Academy

The left has hijacked the word “intellectual” by shutting conservatives out of academia, relegating equally well-educated and thoughtful conservatives to think tanks and public policy. Secure in their institutional control over academies, the left has run rampant and allowed its own standards to plummet. Look at the dumbed-down and ideological courses offered in higher education. Besides the postmodern nonsense that has infiltrated traditional disciplines like literature and philosophy, there are now entire departments devoted to the left’s agenda, which goes unchallenged. (Find me a pro-life women’s studies professor. One.)

Leftist and far left professors now outnumber conservatives almost 12 to 1 in fields like History, Psychology, Law, Economics and Journalism. In History alone, conservatives are outnumbered 33 to 1. In contrast, in the disciplines that require mathematical competence, but aren’t typically homes of self-designated “intellectuals,” conservatives still get hired. The left/right ratio is 2.5 to 1 in engineering and 6.3 to 1 in hard sciences and math.

Plain Talk is Part of a Leader’s Job

Trump has amply demonstrated his grasp of conservative public policy. When asked during one of the presidential debates how the Constitution should be interpreted, he responded, “The justices that I’m going to appoint will be pro-life, they will have a conservative bent. They will be protecting the Second Amendment. They are great scholars in all cases ― and they’re people of tremendous respect. They will interpret the Constitution the way the Founders wanted it interpreted.” That is Justice Antonin Scalia’s view of the Constitution, put in plain words for ordinary voters.

Similarly, when asked about taxes, Trump replied, “The more government takes in taxes, the less incentive people have to work. What coal miner or assembly-line worker jumps at the offer of overtime when he knows Uncle Sam is going to take sixty percent or more of his extra pay?”

Even his statements about illegal immigration demonstrate a thorough understanding of the issue. “A nation without borders is not a nation at all,” he said. “We must have a wall. The rule of law matters.”

One of Trump’s most vocal supporters is the conservative pundit Ann Coulter. She is an extraordinarily bright, practiced constitutional lawyer and has written 12 books on politics. Penguin Random House describes one of her books: “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), the instant New York Times bestseller, shows why Ann Coulter has become the most recognized — and controversial — conservative intellectual in years.” Yet, like Trump, she has a speaking style that is disarming.

Trump has become a politician, and most politicians merely skim the surface of ideas, speaking in emotionally appealing talking points in order to gain support. That is their job — not filling the left’s revisionist meaning of the word intellectual. (For more from the author of “The Myth of Donald Trump as an ‘Anti-Intellectual'” please click HERE)

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